After seeing one list from North Texas naming highest paid CEOS that only included one woman, KERA News decided to look into the disparity. Sadly, the Texas list wasn’t much of an anomaly: The S&P 500 includes only 22 women CEOs, or about 4.4 percent.
We loved this account of women CEOs: their scarcity, the illusion that the problem is already solved, how more women leaders can be good for business (hint: it takes more than just one woman), and how to help prepare women for jobs at the top from the beginning of their careers. Read below, and click through to listen to an interview.
Because seeing women at top positions is wonderful, but we’ve still got work to do before we reach gender equality.
You know those lists that come out every year ranking the highest paid CEOs? Well, one from North Texas caught our eye: there was only one woman in the 100 top paid public company CEOs.
The data, from The Dallas Morning News and Longnecker & Associates, raised two big questions: first, is Texas an anomaly? And second, does it matter for investors if women make it to the C-suite?
Pam Patsley is used to being both a powerful and petite woman. When we meet in a 15th-floor conference room in Dallas, the first thing she does is adjust the height of her chair so her black ballet flats reach the ground.
Patsley became CEO of MoneyGram International – one of the world’s largest cash-transfer firms – in 2009, right after the financial crisis. Her job was to steer the behemoth to safety, all $1 billion-plus of revenue and 300,000 locations – and she did.
